


wash the brush, beat the devil out of it

by noirpunkvamp



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Bob Ross - Freeform, Gen, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Pre-Canon, Pre-Deviant Markus (Detroit: Become Human)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-27
Updated: 2019-05-27
Packaged: 2020-03-20 02:09:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,766
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18983062
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/noirpunkvamp/pseuds/noirpunkvamp
Summary: It took no time at all to understand that Carl Manfred was not one to be fussed over.It took however several weeks for him to understand why Elijah Kamski had made sure to include all episodes of Bob Ross’ The Joy of Painting in his database.





	wash the brush, beat the devil out of it

**Author's Note:**

> I haven't even played the game yet, so I can't assure the credibility of this piece.
> 
> (disclaimer as usual)

Carl Manfred wasted no time before calling Elijah Kamski’s personal number, before the sun even came up, on the morning after his birthday, and demanding that he took his  _machine_ back, insisting — yelling, more like — that he did not need a babysitter.

The inventor, on his part, seemed absolutely nonplussed.

_I didn’t think you had anything against robots, Carl. You had no objections to the canaries I sent you._

_They’re birds. Robots, yeah, but birds. This one looks like a person, too much, in my opinion, and I would expect you of all people to understand that I specifically became a hermit so I wouldn’t have to deal with people._

_Truth as that may be, it wouldn’t hurt to have someone to help around the house. You know, throw away the empty booze bottles, wipe the dust off the canvases…_

_Fuck you, Kamski._

_I won’t even comment on your self imposed exile..._

_As if you were one to talk about self imposed exile, huh?_

_Anyways, since I know how misanthropic you can be, you will be relieved to know you don’t need to talk with him, I programmed him to be mostly autonomous, so he won’t bother you unless absolutely necessary._

The pep talk did little to warm the painter up to the android standing in his living room, but it was enough to at least convince him to agree to a 30-day trial of sorts. _Just a favor for a friend, if you will,_ Kamski had called it. _After all, I do have to test my prototype on someone._ That triggered another string of colorful insults from the painter.

Markus, on his part, watched the entire exchange passively, idly looking around the room, while his new owner cut off the call and slowly turned the wheelchair to face him.

Carl Manfred had just turned 75 years old, but his eyes seemed decades younger as he considered the android before him, hard stare firmly in place. Something in the background of Markus’ processes gave a little halt at the painter’s unnerving gaze. He felt almost… fidgety. The old man’s arms were absolutely covered with tattoos and he still donned the same leather boots he had the previous day, but the alcohol and the wheelchair had lent him an unmistakable aura of frailty, making Markus wonder what the artist must have been like during healthier times.

Something seemed to suddenly change in the man’s semblance, his stare softening somehow, and in the end Markus was allowed to stay in the house, despite his new owner’s feelings about his presence, as long as he did what he was supposed to do within Carl’s boundaries.

“Okay, so you can do as you please around the house, but you’re not supposed to mess with the studio or with my room. You can go out to buy anything you need, I’ll give you access to my bank account. What else...” Carl grumbled, looking around, as if afraid to meet his eyes. “I think that’s all, well... I don’t care for chit chat, so…” he trailed off, but Markus caught his meaning.

“Understood, Mr. Manfred, I will not disturb you.” the android assured him, needlessly, as he registered the directive.

“Yeah, just call me Carl.” he corrected. “I don’t care for this Mr. Manfred business.”

Markus watched as the man turned around and wheeled himself to the foyer, wondering why the painter felt the need to clarify it if they were not to have conversation.

\-----

It took him no time at all to understand that Carl Manfred was _not_ one to be fussed over.

As per his instructions, Markus kept to the common areas of the house. Since the accident, Carl had been keeping mostly to the top floor of the house, where his bedroom and study were located, so the foyer and the living room held little to no signs of living. The curtains were all drawn shut and there was a fine layer of dust covering the furniture, probably not noticeable to a human’s eyes.

He knew that prior to his arrival, Carl had someone come over early in the morning, mostly to prepare his meals and — in a crude way of saying — check if he was still alive. He also knew that the painter had a son, although from the state of abandonment of the house, it was clear that he wasn’t one to visit his father often. Markus briefly wondered if it was the father’s tendencies to isolate himself that drove the son away or if that came after the accident.

Despite looking quite large from the outside and spacious within, Markus found that the Manfred residence was quite easy to maintain and it took less than a couple hours for him to clean and tidy up most of the rooms.

In the freezer he found the meals left by the former caretaker and immediately decided they were not up to his standards; with little nutritional value to calorie ratio and a higher percentage of fats than was healthy for someone of Carl’s age. He took the opportunity to make a short grocery list, as he did not yet know what Carl liked to eat, and to cook a rather simple — yet far better suited to his criteria — lunch with the ingredients available in the fridge.

It was near midday when he took the meal upstairs, along with Carl’s medicine for the afternoon. Carl shushed him out of the room as soon as he put the tray down, mumbling he would call him when he was done. He did not understand the painter’s stubbornness over being taken care of, but it was not in his programming to questions such things, so with not as much as a second thought he moved on with his tasks.

After Markus had retrieved his tray from lunch, Carl had announced he wished to sleep, and had yet to wake up. In the late afternoon, after he had just finished vacuuming the giraffe — a rather interesting choice for decor, he thought — and was on his way to the kitchen to cook up dinner he heard a loud noise coming from upstairs. Believing it to be Carl waking up, he decided to see if the painter needed anything, the next sound however was louder and definitely more worrying. Markus rushed upstairs, but before he could reach the bedroom door, Carl shouted.

“I can hear you out there, go away!” he protested, making some more noise. It seemed he had knocked the wheelchair over.

“I’m sorry, Carl, I just thought you could use some help.”

“No, get out, I can handle it!”

He obviously couldn’t, if the raucous was any indication, and Markus stood on the corridor as his owner tried again and again… A louder noise came, this time it carried none of the sharp rattle of the wheelchair, but only a thud against the ground and a loud curse from Carl followed it.

Markus entered the room despite his orders, his LED flashing yellow momentarily.

Carl was lying on the floor, the wheelchair obviously out of reach, but he seemed unharmed. Markus stepped forward to help him up.

“I thought I told you to stay out!” the painter shouted at him, his face torn in equal measure with anger and frustration.

“My programming dictates—”

“Your programming dictates you obey me!” Carl cut him off, but as soon as the words were out he let out a sharp breath. Markus waited.

He tried not to look as the man struggled to drag himself over to the wheelchair and wondered if this was a common occurrence. He wondered how many times Carl had to wait until someone arrived in the morning after falling or dropping something. He wondered how did the painter stubbornly looked up after himself all these months?

Something uncomfortable stirred deep in his wiring, but a quick system check told him there was nothing wrong.

“Well, that’s fucking great, now I’m becoming one of them…” he grumbled and sighed. “Fine, you can help me up the fucking chair, but I draw the line at the bathroom door. Let me have this last shred of dignity.”

Markus didn’t say a word as he reached down and effortlessly picked up the man from the floor and help him sit on the bed. The android didn’t think there was anything specially undignified about accepting help, he thought as he straightened up the chair from the floor, but made no mention of it. It was a start at least.

\-----

It took him several weeks for him to understand why Elijah Kamski had made sure to include all episodes of Bob Ross’ _The Joy of Painting_ in his database.

It had been raining since before dawn. Carl had seemed more introspective than usual as Markus wheeled him to the living room for his breakfast.

He barely noticed the static of the TV turning on — a pleasant jazz tune playing merrily — as he brought the food to the table, much less the soft baritone of the man speaking a few moments later.

“Hi, welcome back. I’m certainly glad you could join me today.” As he turned back towards the kitchen he noticed Carl had set down the cutlery. “You’re ready to do a fantastic little painting with me?”

Carl didn’t paint anymore; the half-finished canvases strewn around the studio painted an unmistakable picture. Markus knew all about the accident that had paralyzed the painter — he had all of Carl’s medical history in his database — and yet if that had been due to a physical impediment or a psychological one, Markus couldn’t say.

He walked back to the living room, whatever he had planned to say forgotten as he took note of Carl’s fixated look to the TV.

“I didn’t think they would still do reruns of this after all this time…” he mused and his voice was filled with mirth and something else. Nostalgia? Markus looked at the screen to see a canvas sketched with what seemed to be the beginnings of a clear day’s sky. There were barely more than a couple of clouds — certainly not as good as the clouds in Carl Manfred’s own paintings — and yet the man looked at the image in wonder, as if seeing it for the first time. “I used to watch this all the time when I was younger, but that was such a long time ago.”

“The Joy of Painting by Bob Ross. It aired on PBS from 1983 to 1994.” Markus stated matter-of-factly — more to fill the empty space than to convey information — as the man began to carve a what was supposed to be a black mountain over the canvas. It was crude and messy and Markus couldn’t picture that the final product would be any more pleasing to the eye.

Carl turned around in his wheelchair, facing him with a crooked smile. “ _You_ know about Bob Ross?”

“Well,” Markus began, a hint of embarrassment tinging his voice, “I have all of the episodes uploaded to my database. I just had to access them in the last thirty seconds.”

“I see…” There was a note of disappointment in Carl’s voice, which triggered a strange sensation in his chest. He would have called it sadness had it not been logically impossible. “I guess I should have expected that.”

A couple more seconds passed, as both of them watched the beginnings of a snowy peak being born, before Carl spoke again.

“But what do you make of it?” Markus looked at the man, not sure of what he meant, but he did not have to ask for an explanation, because sensing his confusion Carl was quick elaborate. “Well, you have all of the episodes in your brain, so to speak, and you said you have accessed them all in this few seconds, so what have you learned from it?”

Markus was surprised to find he did not have an answer to that.

He instinctively took a couple of steps towards the screen and found himself curiously transfixed by it. There was a sort of beauty in the chaos of the painter’s technique, to be fair. It made no logic, of course, the pattern of the brushstrokes that formed a row of pine trees at the foot of the mountain was irregular, spontaneous, and yet somehow the image formed beautifully as if conjured by the artist’s mind. Markus wasn’t sure he fully understood the concept of beauty, but if his experiences were anything to go by, that was beautiful.

“His technique sure is impressive, but I don’t think that’s all he has to teach his audience, neither that is the focus of the show. He inspires the audience to experiment and not to fuss too much over what the end result will be; and there’s something very reassuring about how he encourages the audience to accept the mistakes as just part of the painting, instead of trying to correct them, which I imagine it must be comforting for someone who is just learning to paint.”

“Interestingly put.” Carl conceded, “You see it was in part thanks to this man that I started to paint.” Markus looked back at him and something like surprise must have shown on his face because Carl laughed softly and went on. “Yeah, I wasn’t always a world class painter, you know? I was once just a blue collar worker in a small town with artistic inclinations, but no real prospects. It was thanks to his advice that I gave myself a chance and bought my first canvas and brushes.”

“Anyone can paint.” Markus recited, unprompted.

“Indeed, but most importantly, he taught me how happy I could be when I painted. I never did it for the money, nor the recognition. I always painted because it made me happy.”

“So why don’t you paint anymore?” Markus blurted out, the impulse faster than his programs. He had the impression his thirium ran colder for a second, but it was surely just his imagination. He finally looked back to Carl, apologies ready in his mind; that was definitely outside the boundaries. “I’m sorry, Carl, I overstepped—” he started, but Carl stopped him.

“Don’t worry, boy, that is a good question.” Carl smiled softly and Markus was amazed at how different he looked from the hardened man from their first meeting. His eyes were warm, kind even. “I guess I don’t have an answer for you, but I guess humans are weird like that.”

There was a wistfulness to his voice Markus had only heard back on that first day when he found his owner on the floor, struggling to prove his independence.

Before arriving at Carl’s house, Markus only had human contact with his creator and even that had been limited to few and superficial interactions, so he never had much time to consider about the full spectrum of human emotions. He had a basic understanding of it from his programming, but it was becoming increasingly clear that such a perfunctory knowledge would prove insufficient.

He forced himself to — as a human would say — put himself in Carl’s shoes. He thought about how he would feel if he lost his movement and was unable to perform the most simple tasks. It was not a pleasant image and it caused something akin to distress to come to the forefront of his processes.

“Have you ever considered painting, Markus?” Carl asked as if he hadn’t stopped at all, starling Markus out of his musings. It was the first time he had addressed him by his name. “I’m curious to what you would make out of it.”

“I can’t say I have, really. As an android I’m not sure I am equipped for such a task.” Markus was more than sure it was not in his abilities to _create_. Of course, he could probably perfectly recreate a painting from his database, but he knew that wasn’t what Carl wanted. “Besides, I believe that seeing you paint would prove to be more educational than any Bob Ross episode ever could.”

Carl narrowed his eyes, studying him, and once again Markus felt strangely fidgety under the painter’s gaze.

“Well, I guess I’m all finished here, then.” Carl said finally, gesturing at his plate and just as the android was leaving with the dishes, he added, “If you could open up the studio, to air out the place I would be thankful.”

Markus turned around and found a smile upon the painter’s face.

“I guess we’ve had enough moping around here, let’s see if I can force the old engine to restart, shall we?”

**Author's Note:**

> English is not my first language and none of this was beta'ed, so if there are any gross grammar or spelling mistakes, please do tell me!


End file.
